Alright, here's the deal. Since I'm on a way limited budget with college and such, I will not be able to get wheels until next spring or so due to my lack of funds. But I'm starting to look at my options now because as soon as I know what I want to buy, I can plan a little better for how much I need to save over the next 5 months or so. With that said, I have a few questions.

1) Overall, what is a more preferable wheel size? 18" or 17"? I don't want to have to roll the fenders and light weight is kind of a priority since I need to keep all the horsepower that I have now, I don't want something over 20 pounds because that's what stock A4 wheels weigh.

2) Shocks. I'm thinking coilover because it's only a few hundred more, but how difficult is it to change the ride height? Winters can be ghetto and it would be nice to jack it up so I'm not scraping ice chunks, etc. I'm also thinking I might doing some auto-x so coilover might be a little more performance oriented, but I definately don't want race coilovers, I just want the sports to stay with a somewhat decent ride quality. Also, what is a preferable lowered height? Around 1.5-2.0 inches?

3) Tires. With a low profile tire, is it much easier to puncture them? The roads out here are ROUGH (potholes, manhole covers, waterline main plates, etc) and I really get the feeling that a really low profile tire would just blow up on impact. I know that proper tire pressure is VERY important, so maybe that's all there is to it? I could also use some suggestions as to what tires to buy that are good in wet/rainy weather and are relatively inexpensive, no $300 a tire Falkens...

So with all that said, I'm looking at H&R coilovers for the suspension, I haven't decided on wheels or tires yet so it'll give me some time to decide. That's all for now, so give me some opinions, tips, pointers, whatever. Thanks everyone!

 

wow.... long post. some of your ?'s you could have def answered yourself through some thorough research, but eh what the hell. good choice on the H&R coilovers, you could go Koni too but their more expensive. don't know if you really need coilovers but they'll be great if you're doing autox. wheels: whatever floats your boat. 17's you can get lighter, but not always. my dads got a set of 18's on his porsche that weight 11 pounds, but it makes up for the weight in $$$$. 18's look better. tires: don't worry about them blowing, if you get good ones and know how to drive to miss the potholes, you'll be fine.

Go here for tires www.tirerack.com you can compare all the tires you want.

 

pretty much what sand said.

 

I'm asking about wheels cuz I really don't have any idea what 17's or 18's would look like, basically I'm looking for any disadvantages to 18's because that's probably what I'll be getting, as long as I don't have to roll the fenders. Coilovers seem like my only option for auto-x, so that's almost a no-brainer and figuring out tires shouldn't be too tough.

 

coilovers shouldnt seem like the only option for auto-x... in fact, the lower you go with coilovers, the softer the suspension gets... pretty gay actually -- but that's how it has to work!

if you run a 225/40/18 tire, you wont need to roll the fenders, unless you go stupid low.

18" tires will cost you more (though I don't see why you think falkens are top notch -- they aren't).

As for the difficulty of raising and lowerng the car with C/O's... it isnt too big of a deal. Prolly take a couple hours all said and done, getting the height to match on all 4 corners. There is a lot of jacking the car up, adjusting, lowering it... and repeating this process.

I personally went with 17's to maintain a better ride, and so I could afford tires a little easier. Most people would agree that 18's are better...

a 40 series tire (if you go 18's) isnt super crazy low profile... but if you are buying light wheels on a budget, you can bank on them not being super strong. Going 17's would mean a stronger wheel, as well as more tire to cushion them.

 

I see your point Headshok, less wheel = more tire to cushion, seems like a good combo for our crappy roads out here. Plus strength is an issue as well. I would love to be able to afford a nice 3 piece wheel but I just don't think that's going to be in the budget. Would you recommend Bilstein shocks with H&R springs for auto-x?

 

bilstein shocks are awesome. I have used them with eibach springs... but have no experience with H&R -- i have heard great things about H&R C/O's, but I've heard a couple remarks of dislike towards their springs.

Neuspeed and Eibach make good springs though. I'm sure H&R's are fine too... some people are just picky.

 

I think that the H&R's are probably the route I'm gonna go, or maybe the Stasis Koni's, I can get those from Achtuning for $1K.

 

i believe on some set of H&R c/o you can adjust ride height and the dampers so they're a good deal i would assume (the ultra sport i think). I may be goin with them too because of NJ winters and autox.

 

Fo sho, jacking them ***** up in the winter is definately needed, no ice or small animals in my lower grille. I was just sitting here thinking that 17's would be better for auto x because you'd get a little lower center of gravity, not much but every little bit hleps I guess.